Heather Dinich reveals College Football Playoff committee thought process on Tennessee

Heather Dinich revealed that she believes the College Football Playoff committee has a lot of love for Tennessee.

While the Volunteers were ranked No. 5 in Tuesday’s rankings, the ESPN analyst stated that she thinks Josh Heupel’s squad can still finish as a Top 4 squad.

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“Tennessee can still finish as a Top 4 team,” stated Dinich. “The selection committee loves their wins against LSU and Alabama. They’re No. 2 this week in strength of record, and somebody above them is going to lose. Ohio State and Michigan still have to play each other. You know what’s interesting, the selection committee has only left out one one-loss SEC team ever from the College Football Playoff, Texas A&M in 2020 was No. 5.

“So it’s certainly possible that a one-loss team that doesn’t win their division can finish in the Top 4, Ohio State did it in 2016, Alabama did it in 2017.”

Alas, Dinich doesn’t think Tennessee fans should fear just yet, even with their loss to Georgia. When the rankings were originally released, she stated that the Volunteers are “right where you want to be.”

“It starts with Tennessee and they are still in a position to finish in the top four,” said Dinich. “They’re actually right where you wanna be on the bubble, because you know somebody above them is going to lose because Ohio State and Michigan play each other.

“Tennessee still has two of the best wins in the country against Alabama and LSU and it’s important they’re above Oregon. Because if Oregon finishes as a one-loss Pac-12 champ and Tennessee is sitting there at 11-1, right now we know the committee thinks that Tennessee is a better team. We’ll see if a conference championship could change that in the end.”

Continuing, Dinich’s comments on Tennessee seem to be an accurate breakdown of how the committee views Tennessee after their loss to Georgia. Although a team like Oregon has looked excellent since being blown out by Georgia to start the season, Tennessee’s strong wins appears to be the reason why they’re ranked above the Ducks.

Also boosting Tennessee’s chances — a dominant showing against newly ranked No. 7 LSU earlier this year. Although LSU has begun to make a case for themselves belonging in the CFP picture as a two-loss team, Heather Dinich and others like Greg McElroy believe that Tennessee with one loss will weigh heavily over the possibility of LSU being SEC champions.

On3’s Austin Brezina contributed to this article.